"That makes it quite safe," replied Polonius; "you shall accompany me by way of an overture, for there ain't a man in England gets more applause in 'Hot Codlins' than myself."
I tried to laugh, as if I considered the proposition an excellent joke; but I have every reason to believe the wretch was serious. I began to perceive that every person engaged on the stage, though only to deliver a message, thinks himself the principal performer; he also is of opinion that there is no disparity of rank upon the boards, but that what the clown does, may also be done by the tragedian. I have no doubt Diavolo Antonio looked down on Edmund Kean. I was on the point of renewing the conversation, when an enormous noise at the pit-entrance attracted my notice. A thrill of gratification came into my heart. All regard for Shakspeare is not yet extinct, in spite of fencing Hamlets and ignorant managers. The rush into the pit was prodigious. I looked through the green curtain once more. Her Majesty's ship, the Periander, 44, had been paid off that morning, and the gallant crew and their wives filled every bench. The majority of the valiant defenders of their country were polygamists to the most undeniable amount, and seemed rather proud of the extent to which they broke the law. Those who rejoiced in single blessedness limited themselves to one wife. The trebly blessed were numerous, and the boatswain had six to share his heart and fortunes. Here I perceived the manager's perils, but not from ginger-beer. There were cans of gin and rum, that would have supplied a tavern for a week. Single bottles of whisky were brandished in the air, as on festive occasions landsmen wave their hats; and in a short time the calls for music became overpowering, and the manager sent secretly for a company of marines and a division of the police.
"If that hairy-cheeked foreigner doesn't come," said Osric, with unaffected fear, "there will be a row, like the boarding of an enemy's ship. They always think us foreigners when we wear slashed doublets; and in the war time they shipped off my predecessor, who was acting a Parisian marquis, in a cartel that was just starting with a batch of French prisoners to be exchanged. The poor man died in the hulks at Toulon, for he had been counted against an English captain, and they kept him in captivity because the captain refused to return."
I looked at my watch: it only wanted ten minutes to seven, and the storm rising every moment. If Catsbach plays me false, I shall rescue my mother, I thought, and fight my way into the street. I looked at my sword; it was of silver-gilt tin, and couldn't have committed manslaughter on the body of Tom Thumb. A universal cheer proclaimed an arrival; and I declare the first scrape of the fiddle was the sweetest music I ever heard. It gave quite a new turn to the behaviour of the sailors. They ordered "God save the Queen" and "Rule Britannia," and then roared lustily for a hornpipe. Catsbach gratified them in whatever they asked. At last they called for a gangway to be placed from the orchestra on to the stage, and proposed commencing the dramatic proceedings of the evening by a miscellaneous country dance. This, however, was not accorded—the little bell rang—and the serious overture began.
At this moment Mr Wormwood, out of breath, and enraptured apparently with my approaching triumph, caught me by the hand. "Let me introduce you," he said, "to the three greatest critics in Europe. We have hurried from London to see your debût. I have the highest opinion of your genius, and feel sure you will be most unanimously and ignominiously cat-called—as we were."
The three gentlemen bowed, and retired into the stage-box beside my mother, to write a description of my reception. I was too indignant to speak, and suddenly the curtain rose, and the play began. The ghost was received with the most vociferous applause, and seemed to strike the naval mind as the liveliest personage in the play. His silence was considered a remarkably comic piece of character, and evidently assumed to cover his forgetfulness of the words. Many exhortations were offered to him to take another spell at the book, or spin them a yarn out of his own head. Allusions were also made to his obesity, which evidently did not accord with the forecastle's idea of a ghost; and when, in spite of all the advice and suggestion that had been offered him, he maintained an imperturbable silence, they got into a violent state of indignation at having been defrauded of the speeches; for they could not believe it possible for a personage to stalk across the stage and look so very solemn without having anything to say. Whereupon Count Osric went forward and soothed them by a solemn promise that in some of the succeeding scenes the ghost would be as talkative as they chose. Satisfied with this, they received the opening scene of the court of Denmark with several rounds of applause, which were duly responded to by each of the performers on the stage.
With a dignity befitting the crown-prince of a gallant nation, I maintained my position on the left of the king, and made no recognition of the welcome offered me in so tumultuous a manner. I observed an orange glide within a few inches of my face, and splash on the back of the royal chair; but affairs advanced so rapidly from this point that I had no time to take notice of the insult. When the king had arrived at about the middle of the first speech, a quarrel took place in the pit between two captains of the maintop, and a challenge was rapidly exchanged. A sudden whistle from the boatswain called attention to the interesting fact, and the play was suspended for a few minutes till the belligerents gave and received the satisfaction which their injured honours required. While the two captains were belabouring each other, to the admiration of all the audience, the manager slipt up to where I was standing, and whispered, "I feel greatly obliged for the five-pound note, and also for the three guineas you have left for the supper to-night; but my advice to you is to slip off the stage as fast as you can; convey the lady who accompanied you to the coach-office—and——"
"Why?" I said. "This riot will soon be over."
"A worse is coming; for a dreadful disappointment has occurred. Do as I advise you, or I won't answer that we shan't all be ducked in the river—lady, too, if she's found out to belong to your party."
"And not a word of my part yet spoken! Perhaps they will be stilled when they hear the voice of Hamlet."